You’ve got to keep your eyes peeled for them. I now know where to find them in the Butterflies & Blooms in the Briar Patch Habitat. I know when to look for them there, where, and I know that you have to look for them, because at 1″ across, wing to wing, they are ‘t’ as in tiny. A Red-banded hairstreak.
They fly roughly from Pennsylvania down to Florida, and have several broods (generations), raising the likelihood that you’ll see one . . . again, if you look. I am always looking, especially here in central Georgia. Why? Well, the southern Red-bandeds have broader, more prominent red-orange bands across their hindwings. I’m a sucker for those red-bands, truth be told.
This gent was camera ready. That band, bordered in white, those 2 pairs of tiny tails, that light blue patch, adequate eyespots, neat spotted legs and antennae and . . . those perky eyes and palps. The whole package.
You can’t help but perk up! when your eyes set on a fresh Red-banded hairstreak like this guy. A Red-banded delight!
Jeff
Winged Beauty Butterflies 
lovely shot of this beauty! such a challenge: catching such a moment- when all is right and one spots the flash…and follows to find such subtle color, rear wings rubbing gently …sunning then off again as hunger strikes and they seek a bit of nectar.
thought about you when i spotted a Giant Purple Hairstreak in the habitat this past fall (2016). nectaring on native mist flowers, bypassing all the nectar loaded flowers filling my own garden and the habitat as if they wait for just the right bloom before flashing that amazing turquoise flash alerting one of a brief visit….ahhhh
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Well then judgeva, please send out an invitation to the Great Purple Hairstreaks, inviting them to Eatonton’s own High Tea, and give this anxious photographer a holler!
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